Connecticut advocates and policymakers were unsure last week of the future of the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program following the Trump administration’s decision to layoff the program’s staff.
LIHEAP provides federally funded assistance to qualifying households to reduce the costs associated with home energy bills through Connecticut Energy Assistance Program (CEAP). In the 2023-2024 winter, CEAP helped 99,000 households cover their home heating bills.
However, last week, Donald Trump’s Secretary of Public Health Robert F. Kennedy Jr. laid off 10,000 employees and cut hundreds of millions of dollars in funding, including $175 million to Connecticut.
The effects of these funding cuts and firings were still unfolding, and Connecticut leaders learned that the entire Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) staff was included in the mass layoff.
It is not yet clear whether funding to the program has been cut, but without staff to administer the program, state partners have been left without direction nor a contact at the federal agency.
Last week, Sen. Matt Lesser, chair of the Human Services Committee, led a press conference to raise awareness of the threat to the program, which supports thousands of Connecticut families.
“It is a vital lifeline to keep people with disabilities, to keep the elderly, to keep low-income families from freezing to death in the winter and without that program we have no alternative, there is no additional safety net,” Lesser said. “Today, we’re calling on President Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary Kennedy to reconsider, to save this program to ensure that our constituents this winter don’t freeze to death.”
